


Men To Gods Shall Speak

by icarus_chained



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 18:37:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson. Trust, faith, loyalty, honour, belief. The things he is and the things he believes. (5 ficlets)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Men To Gods Shall Speak

**Author's Note:**

> Five ficlets prompts. And apparently Phil was in a speaking mood, tonight. *smiles sheepishly*

**Trust**

The suit is an illusion, a mask of harmlessness and vague efficiency that comforts the people he steals from, passing beneath their radar. They give their secrets, not always willingly, to a bland little man, an empty suit, that passes their way. The only thing Phil can give them in return is the promise that he will never use those secrets for evil, or against them unless they give him cause.

He isn't sure, even still, how so many of them came to trust that, and the man he is beneath it.

 

**Faith**

He believes in what he does. In saving the world, in fighting the good fight, in standing up to the bad guys. In finding the good ones, helping them, believing in them. Phil believes in what they do. He has faith. In what they're fighting for, in the people fighting for it. He's believed since he was a child, looking down at a piece of pasteboard that was so much more than that, and the man it depicted who'd been, in the end, so much less, and a hundred times better, than he ever understood.

Faith is old fashioned, these days. Phil has never really _cared_.

 

**Loyalty**

They're his people. An odd possessive instinct, maybe, a secret little vice that he should hold to himself, and never share. Not so innocent as a child's precious set of cards, though infinitely more important. But despite that, they are his. They belong to him, with their secrets and their struggles, with their trust and their suspicions, with their visions and their fears. The men and women he stands beside, his boss, his soldiers, his charges, his friends. They're his, they belong to him.

And that, Phil thinks, is a thing worth fighting for. Or dying for.

 

**Honour**

He's not a soldier. Never quite had the mindset for that, for all his childhood heroes. He's a spy, instead, not on the front lines but behind them, and there have been many people who told him that wasn't so honourable a thing. But he helped Nick Fury hold up a world in secret. He watched Tony Stark put himself back together. He stood behind Natasha Romanov as she walked into danger, the world on the end of his phone for threatening her. He watched Captain America as he lay sleeping, and saw him come back to the world. He watched a god try to murder his brother, and picked up a gun to try and stop it.

He doesn't know what those people thought was honour, the ones who told him he didn't have any. But he watches grief in the eyes of a god for his death, and he thinks ... that in the end, he might know it better than any of them.

 

**Belief**

The gods lack conviction, at the last. He's not sure why that seems as amusing as it does. They've all been ... so much more frail, than you'd think to expect of them. So much more fragile, holding so many fears, doubts, so many secrets and worries. Heroes, gods and monsters, and none of them really stronger than him. Conviction. In the end, it makes all the difference in the world. 

"It's alright, boss," he whispers. Nick, in the end. Always. They've been the line, for so long. "It was never going to work, unless they had something to ..."

Conviction, he thinks, as the world fades away. Hears it in the voice above him. Nick Fury, who's believed as long as he has, who'll pick this up and take it all the way. As a favour. And because it's necessary. Yes, Phil thinks. Conviction ... is what men can give to gods. 

And oh, but they are _going_ to.


End file.
